Plasmonics enabled advances in photoconductive terahertz radiation sources (Invited Paper)

We present an overview of recent advances in photoconductive terahertz sources that utilize plasmonic nanostructures to significantly enhance optical-to-terahertz power conversion efficiency by enhancing light-matter interaction at nanoscale. We show that the impact of the plasmonic nanostructures on enhancing the optical-to-terahertz conversion efficiency of photoconductive terahertz sources is universal and can be employed in various types of photoconductive source designs under various operational settings.